1. Technical Field
The present application relates to children's furniture and more particularly to furniture that may serve multiple purposes, such as acting as a step stool, chair, desk, art station, and the like.
2. Related Art
Children, and especially toddlers, amass stuff. Toys, clothes, books, videos, and the like accumulate from infancy as parents, grandparents, family and friends provide an endless stream of gifts to nurture and support the rapidly developing child. Furniture is no exception. Cribs, beds, rocking chairs, changing tables, wardrobes, toy chests, and the like. The smallest member of the household often takes a disproportionately large share of the space.
To address these problems, some convertible furniture have been developed to provide multiple functions with the same materials. However, these pieces suffer from problems of their own. For example, they are usually large, cumbersome and/or complex, making them difficult and potentially dangerous for use by children. For example, when in typical step stool configurations, these devices usually provide an upper step positioned nearly directly overtop a intermediate step, making it difficult for a toddler still adapting to her new movement abilities to reach the top step. Similarly, it typically requires significant effort, precision, or both to properly configure these pieces as tables or desktops, well beyond the capabilities of a toddler. Even if a parent or other adult is able to re-configure the furniture in such a configuration, the resulting table or desk is either difficult to use, unstable, or both.
Accordingly, a need has long existed for convertible furniture that may be utilized by children and provides real utility in each of its various configurations.